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XII.

CABINET-MAKING AND COALITION.

WHENEVER personality has an undue weight in politics, jealousies are engendered and disaster follows. Statesmen who are regarded as patterns of abnegation and high-principled to the backbone, and allege that the good of their country is their only joy, are not exempt from mortal frailties, and they frequently cloak themselves in patriotism to subserve their ambition and enable them to deal their rivals a death-blow. Both Fox and Shelburne allowed their personal antipathies to regulate their conduct; neither would acknowledge or submit to the supremacy of the other and these two men, whose joint action would have kept the King in check and muzzled his so-called friends, contributed by their foolish and blind animosity to discredit the noble cause of constitutional Government. Towards the end of their lives they both admitted that they had been in the wrong, and had entirely misunderstood each other. If Shelburne, then Marquess of Lansdowne, had lived another year, he might have been Fox's colleague in the Ministry of all the Talents.

In 1782, however, the mutual enmities were active which had expired before 1806, and Shelburne was

the victim of factious opposition in Parliament, his overthrow being accomplished by an unholy alliance between the followers of North and Fox, who banded themselves together in opposition to the terms of a general peace which had been negotiated during Shelburne's Premiership. It is true that a desire to displace the Prime Minister, as William Pitt maintained, was the mainspring of the movement, yet it cannot be denied that some of the concessions to foreign Powers, which Shelburne and his colleagues had sanctioned, were fair subjects of controversy and were clearly open to adverse criticism on the ground of policy. In a debate on the Preliminary Articles of Peace, Sheridan availed himself of an opportunity to deprecate the conduct of the Government, and Lord John Cavendish proposed a motion of censure upon them which was carried by a majority of 16. While replying to this speech and others, William Pitt took special notice of Sheridan's criticisms and remarked that "no man admired more than he did the abilities of that Honourable gentleman, the elegant sallies of his thought, the gay effusions of his fancy, his dramatic turns, and his epigrammatic points; and if they were reserved for the proper stage they would no doubt receive the plaudits of the audience; and it would be his fortune sui plausu gaudere theatri. But this was not the proper scene for the exhibition of these elegancies; and he therefore must beg leave to call the attention of the House to the serious consideration of the very important question then before them."

When Pitt sat down, Sheridan rose and, readily obtaining leave to make an explanation, he intimated

XII.]

"THE ANGRY BOY"

399

that he would not comment on the sort of personality which the Right Hon. gentleman had thought proper to introduce: "He need not comment on it; the propriety, the taste, the gentlemanly point of it must have been obvious to the House. But let me assure the Rt. Hon. gentleman, that I do now, and will at any time when he chooses to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the most sincere good humour. Nay, I will say more. Flattered and encouraged by the Rt. Hon. gentleman's panegyric on my talents, if I ever again engage in the compositions he alludes to, I may be tempted to an act of presumption, to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's best characters, the character of the Angry Boy in The Alchemist."1

1 "The Parliamentary History," vol. xxiii., pp. 490, 491. Sheridan was in the habit of writing notes to his brother-in-law, Richard Tickell, in which he made humorous comments on current events such as might now find a place in Punch. He wrote as follows after his passage of arms with Pitt: "Advertisement Extraordinary. We hear that, in consequence of a hint, lately given in the House of Commons, the play of The Alchemist is certainly to be performed by a set of gentlemen for our diversion, in a private apartment of Buckingham House. The characters, thus described in the old editions of Ben Jonson, are to be represented in the following manner-the practice of men playing the female parts being adopted:

Four days after the House of Commons had disapproved of the Preliminary Articles of Peace, Lord John Cavendish moved their direct condemnation. William Pitt produced one of his greatest oratorical effects when replying to Fox. He knew that Fox and North had joined forces, and that the defeat of the Administration of which he was an important member was certain. He affirmed, with impassioned emphasis, that the object of his opponents was simply to displace the advisers of the King; that they were as unprincipled as they were audacious, and he declared with all the vehemence of personal conviction and in accents which were not wholly rhetorical :— "It is the Earl of Shelburne alone whom the movers of this question are desirous to wound. This is the object which has raised the storm of faction; this is the aim of the unnatural coalition to which I have alluded. If, however, the baneful alliance is not already formed, if this ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful impediment, and in the name of the public safety, I here forbid the banns."1

From the 21st of February, 1783, till the 2nd of April in that year, the business of the country was conducted by Ministers who held office till the appointment of their successors had been officially declared. This was due to the King, who, in the words of Mr. Bagehot, "was always resisting what ought to be and prolonging what ought not to be."2 He now struggled, with wrongly-directed energy, 1 "The Parliamentary History," vol. xxiii., p. 552.

2 "The English Constitution," p. 68.

XII.]

SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

401

against calling to his counsels the men who had gained the confidence of the House of Commons. The triumphant Opposition had internal difficulties to surmount. Unpublished letters of Mrs. Tickell to her sister contain many interesting references to Sheridan's activity during the interregnum. She wrote in one of them :-" Sheridan is worth all their party to them almost at this critical point; but you know how indefatigable he is in politics and indeed it's well he is, for I suppose he told you how your friend Charles [Fox] was engaged the night they wanted him at a consultation of the greatest importance at the Duke of Portland's. Tickell says if it was not for Sheridan he don't know how they would do for he is of more consequence to them now than he has ever been."1

When a Coalition Ministry was formed with the Duke of Portland at its head, and with Fox and North as Secretaries of State, the office of a Secretary to the Treasury was confided to Sheridan, an office which then was far more important than it is at present, owing to the enormous amount of patronage which its holder could dispense or control. He was not under any illusion as to the stability of the Coalition. Burke was enthusiastic in approving of its formation, being far more eager than Sheridan to return to office, and that of Paymaster to the Forces being congenial to him chiefly because, as he avowed, the salary amounted to £4,000 a year. If Fox had

1 In another of these letters a saying by Jekyll has been preserved. He said, after seeing bills pasted up in favour of Pitt, it verified the old proverb, "the weakest goes to the wall."

VOL. I.

26